By Marie-Therese Nanlong

After cycles of violence that destroyed their communities and claimed many lives, the people of Barkin Ladi Local Government of Plateau State have begun search for genuine peace and stability.

In reaching for a lasting peace, the people have undertaken to learn techniques that can aid them in identifying potential conflict issues and flag them before they escalate, improve peaceful coexistence and engender development in their respective communities.

The community stakeholders, including religious leaders, cattle herders, crop farmers, women and youth groups in Barkin Ladi Local Government converged at the Ropp Community under the auspices of the Mashiah Foundation with the support of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to facilitate the development of a joint action plan with local authorities for conflict resolution and peaceful coexistence using community participatory/engagement approaches.

At the ceremony, the Executive Director of the Mashiah Foundation, Pastor Bayo Oyebade, told the people that development could only thrive in an atmosphere of peace and harmony and implored them to always seek peace and pursue it.

Oyebade said, “Peace is very central to development: Our future, economy, children and everything will be affected without peace. Without peace, children can’t go to schools. We are here to raise one another to respect our neighbours and live in peace with them. That is how we were raised; we need to return to the culture of peace.

“What is happening now is strange to us; peace is very central to development everywhere, and we need to give peace a chance. ELCA is interested that the communities experience peace so we are here to hear from you and to support you to live in peace.

“Plateau people are beautiful people and I hope that in this meeting, as we talk so openly, we will work together, understand one another’s view and bridge the broken relationship. We appeal to all of you to desist from violence; engage in dialogues across communities and build peace.”

He said he is committed to working with genuine orphans and vulnerable women and empowering them to have a secure future.

In his remark, the Da Gwom Rwei of Barkin Ladi, Da Edward noted that “Barkin Ladi has been experiencing a lot of crises since 2001 when it started from Jos the capital and later on spread to other local governments but glory be to God things are not as bad as before, there is a bit of relative peace through the efforts of security agents.

“What we have now is mostly criminality; recently, one of our councillors was killed, some people don’t want peace but we pray that God will just talk to their minds to stop all this nonsense.”

He commended the Mashiah Foundation for the efforts to build peace and stressed, “It was not easy but it is because of such gatherings that we were able to interact with one another. When it first started, we hardly even greeted ourselves but as we continued on this sort of programme, they were very helpful. We are committed to peace.”

The event, which was held for three days in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area, was also replicated in Bassa Local Government Area of the state and had different discussions, group work as well and question and answer sessions.

Among the topics discussed were, the role of community and religious leaders in conflict management and peacebuilding, the role of security apparatus Operation Safe Haven in conflict management and the identification of red flags (Potential Causes/Triggers of Conflict) by the Commander, Sector 4 Command, OpSH.

Others were conflict resolution strategies employed in Berom and Fulani communities; conflict resolution techniques, and dialogue for improving peaceful coexistence; conflict resolution and the importance of community dialogue.

There was also the establishment of mutually agreed community-based complaint/concern response mechanisms on how to address grievances as well as the development of a joint action plan with local authorities for conflict resolution and peaceful coexistence using community participatory/engagement approaches.